Common and Pete Rock Team Up For New Single

Common and Pete Rock released their new single, Wise Up. Wise Up sonically touches on their Golden Age of Hip Hop with a contemporary feel, universal to any era of hip-hop. Created by the perfect pairing, one of hip hop’s most evocative emcees (Common), with one of its most heralded producers (Pete Rock), Wise Up sets a tone for what could be their most potent work in decades.

To launch Wise Up, Common and Pete Rock partnered with director Marleaux Desiré to create a visual to present their new music in an inspiring and creative way. The video captures the street level community stories they represent in their new single and is a visual representation of what they’re speaking about in the song. It features visual ideations from ILLIMITÉWORLD and still photography by creative director, Alonzo Hellerbach.

“Wise Up represents the coming together of a New York Producer and a Chicago MC doing the hip-hop we love. It feels like the spirit of where we come from, the boom bap, the basement, but it also feels forward and new. We wanted this to be the first joint because this record captures a new sound and is a new light but speaks directly to our hip-hop family,” says Common.

On the new release, Pete Rock says “Working with Common was a breath of fresh air. We both connected to a higher power, which helped us tap into our greatest level of creativity. We constructed an amazing project! Common has an incredible soul, so it was easy to connect with someone who is on the same page as me.”